"Don't put any onions in the salad," she reminds me. "You know how Daddy hates onions."
This time I can't answer.
I just keep cutting. Chopping. Tearing. If only I could chop away the years. Shred the age from my mother's face and hands.
My mother had been beautiful. She still is. In fact, my mother is still everything she has been, just a bit forgetful. I try to convince myself that's all that it is, and if she really concentrated, she would not repeat herself so much. There isn't anything wrong with her.
I cut off the end of the cucumber and rub it against the stalk to take away the bitterness. The white juice oozes out the sides. Wouldn't it be nice if all unpleasant situations could be so easily remedied? Cut and rub. This is a trick I have learned from my mother, along with a trillion other things: cooking, sewing, dating, laughing, thinking. I learned how to grow up. I learned the art of sorting through emotions.
And I learned that when my mother was around, I never had to be afraid.
So why am I afraid now?
I study my mother's hands. Her nails are no longer a bright red, but painted a light pink, almost no color at all. And as I stare at them, I realize I am no longer looking at those hands but feeling them as they shaped my youth. Hands that packed a thousand lunches and wiped a million tears off my cheeks. Hands that tucked confidence into each day of my life.
I turn away and throw the cucumber into the bowl. And then it hits me. My hands have grown into those of my mother's.
Hands that have cooked uneaten meals, held my own daughter's frightened fingers on the first day of school and dried tears off her face.
I grow lighthearted. I can feel my mother kiss me goodnight, check to see if the window is locked, then blow another kiss from the doorway. Then I am my mother, blowing that same kiss to Anna off that same palm.
Outside everything is still. Shadows fall among the trees, shaped like pieces of a puzzle.